Sweden, that Scandinavian country known mostly for its fish-shaped candy and for being birthplace of IKEA, will officially be adding a gender-neutral pronoun to its dictionary come April. Members of the Swedish Academy—a Very Important Swedish institution that not only publishes two Swedish dictionaries but is also responsible for deciding annually who wins a Nobel Prize in Literature—decided this year that they will be including the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” among the 13,000 new words in the Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL). The single-volume glossary is regarded as the singular authority on Swedish spelling.

While the English-speaking world drags its feet trying to decide how to implement gender-neutrality into its language, Sweden has informally embraced “hen” as part of its parlance since the 1960s. The word was originally conceived in an attempt to refine the Swedish language by linguist Hans Karlgren. Since then it has become far more politically charged, co-opted as a cause for feminist groups and then as a necessary accomodation for Sweden’s increasingly visible transgender community in the early 2000s. In 2002, the pronoun was included in the National Encyclopedia.Proponents of the term say it can be used when the gender of a person is unclear or irrelevant to the text.

Language constructs much of our reality, and gender exists because we construct it, on a daily basis, through performance as well as speech. According to SAOL’s editors, these kinds of changes can help transform our realities as much as they can help change the way we relate our realities.

"Words are always really important. This is about how one describes reality and this in turn can have different motives," said the SAOL’s editor-in-chief, Professor Sven-Göran Malmgren.

Swedish linguists hope to tackle racism in their language as well—in their new edition, they also offer alternatives to historically racist terms that refer to black people, gypsies, and Sweden’s indigenous people.

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Photo by Flickr user Sandra Fauconnier.

Sweden, that Scandinavian country known mostly for its fish-shaped candy and for being birthplace of IKEA, will officially be adding a gender-neutral pronoun to its dictionary come April. Members of the Swedish Academy—a Very Important Swedish institution that not only publishes two Swedish dictionaries but is also responsible for deciding annually who wins a Nobel Prize in Literature—decided this year that they will be including the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” among the 13,000 new words in the Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL). The single-volume glossary is regarded as the singular authority on Swedish spelling.

While the English-speaking world drags its feet trying to decide how to implement gender-neutrality into its language, Sweden has informally embraced “hen” as part of its parlance since the 1960s. The word was originally conceived in an attempt to refine the Swedish language by linguist Hans Karlgren. Since then it has become far more politically charged, co-opted as a cause for feminist groups and then as a necessary accomodation for Sweden’s increasingly visible transgender community in the early 2000s. In 2002, the pronoun was included in the National Encyclopedia.Proponents of the term say it can be used when the gender of a person is unclear or irrelevant to the text.

Language constructs much of our reality, and gender exists because we construct it, on a daily basis, through performance as well as speech. According to SAOL’s editors, these kinds of changes can help transform our realities as much as they can help change the way we relate our realities.

"Words are always really important. This is about how one describes reality and this in turn can have different motives," said the SAOL’s editor-in-chief, Professor Sven-Göran Malmgren.

Swedish linguists hope to tackle racism in their language as well—in their new edition, they also offer alternatives to historically racist terms that refer to black people, gypsies, and Sweden’s indigenous people.

Gender identity, once considered a binary option and unchangeable fact, has become increasingly complex over the years as the transgender community has become more visible. The transgender experience is not a new one; one of the first records of a transgender individual dates back to 1880, when Rev. Joseph Lobdell, born as Lucy Ann Slater, was admitted to the Willard Asylum at age 56 after it was discovered that he was a “woman.”

Even as society grows more aware and accepting of the transgender community, when children declare themselves a different gender than the one assigned to them at birth, a whole new round of pearl-clutching starts. Take, for instance, the tabloid chatter about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s child, Shiloh, who has a reported preference for boy’s clothes and wants to be called John.

Raising Ryland, directed by Sarah Feeley, is a CNN Films documentary debuting on CNN.com Wednesday, March 18 that provides an intimate look into the lives of the Whittington family and their decision to support and affirm the gender identity of their six-year-old child. Hillary and Jeff, Ryland’s parents, initially struggled when Ryland adamantly refused to conform to female gender norms, forcefully insisting, “I’m a boy.”

“A lot of kids are defiant, and say ‘I don’t want to wear that dress’ and be difficult, but it was deeper than that. Ryland had shame,” Hillary said. "He would come home from school…and take off his girl clothes immediately. He’d go straight to Jeff’s closet and put on all of Jeff’s shirts and ties and pants.”

A family portrait, courtesy of the Whittington family

For many years, when faced with such behavior, physicians and psychologists would recommend parents “redirect” a child’s tendencies to dress or act as the gender that was not assigned to them at birth. For example, if a parent saw their son playing with Barbies, they would replace the Barbies with G.I. Joes or some other acceptable “masculine” toy.

“It’s just a phase,” was a common refrain used to quell anxious parents’ fears. For some children, that may be true, or they may express certain non-conforming traits, but not others. But for some, their assigned gender identity simply feels totally wrong.

The farther children move from their assigned gender identity, the more their parents might try to force them to conform. “Very frequently, there is a period of crisis close to puberty, where parents start to pay more attention and try to intervene,” says Feeley.

In a new study, published earlier this year in the journal Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Washington led by Kristina Olson, psychologist and founder of the TransYouth Project, found that young people who claim a different gender than what was assigned at birth identify as consistently and innately with that gender identity as other kids their age that are not trans (i.e. cisgender).

The journey towards a still limited, albeit growing, public acceptance has been a long one. When transgender identity first penetrated Western mass media, news outlets sensationalized the concept with shock value headlines like “Woman Trapped in a Man’s Body!” Those who were brave enough to discuss their gender identity and transition in public were often subject to insensitive, probing questions. For instance, when talk show host Piers Morgan interviewed Janet Mock, a well-known transgender activist, he focused primarily on Mock’s current relationship and the moment of “having to reveal that she was formerly a man” rather than Mock’s work as an advocate and her book, Redefining Realness.

In Raising Ryland, Feeley and the Whittingtons avoid the sensationalist route, instead choosing to depict how an average American family comes to terms with a child’s non-cisgender identity.

“So much of what they’re dealing with is actually universal parental issues. The Whittingtons are engaged in a type of quiet activism. There are families out there that have legal fights with their school district or the Boy Scouts, people fighting for legislative change,” Feeley said. “The Whittingtons aren’t in that kind of legal fight, I’m more interested in the internal dynamics of the family.”

In the film, told partially through the Whittingtons’ home movies, Hillary and Jeff first work through Ryland’s deaf diagnosis at 12 months, his surgery to receive cochlear implants, and “mainstreaming” Ryland by enrolling him in kindergarten at the local elementary school rather than a deaf-specialized school. Since Ryland could not speak until he was two years old, they dressed him in traditional feminine clothes (pink dresses and bows primarily).

Once Hillary and Jeff accepted Ryland’s identifying as a male they grew more and more supportive, writing a letter to their friends and family explaining Ryland’s transition and creating a YouTube video for the teachers at Ryland’s new elementary school to educate them on transgender identity. The video went viral, accumulating almost 7.5 million hits.

A contributing factor to this disturbing statistic is a lack of family support; a 2011 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 40 percent of respondents reported that their parents or other family members “chose not to speak or spend time” with them due to their gender identity/expression. The suicide of Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen, on December 28, 2014, made international news when a suicide note was posted to her Tumblr hours after her death. In the letter, she talked about her experiences growing up in a strict Christian household and how her parents tried to get her to attend conversion therapy. She wrote, “My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that's fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”

“This film and this experience is like [a] flame… I don’t want these kids’ flames to blow out… I want the light of Ryland and his family to shine in the world,” Feeley said. “And maybe it will open some people’s minds in the process.”

Gender identity, once considered a binary option and unchangeable fact, has become increasingly complex over the years as the transgender community has become more visible. The transgender experience is not a new one; one of the first records of a transgender individual dates back to 1880, when Rev. Joseph Lobdell, born as Lucy Ann Slater, was admitted to the Willard Asylum at age 56 after it was discovered that he was a “woman.”

Even as society grows more aware and accepting of the transgender community, when children declare themselves a different gender than the one assigned to them at birth, a whole new round of pearl-clutching starts. Take, for instance, the tabloid chatter about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s child, Shiloh, who has a reported preference for boy’s clothes and wants to be called John.

Raising Ryland, directed by Sarah Feeley, is a CNN Films documentary debuting on CNN.com Wednesday, March 18 that provides an intimate look into the lives of the Whittington family and their decision to support and affirm the gender identity of their six-year-old child. Hillary and Jeff, Ryland’s parents, initially struggled when Ryland adamantly refused to conform to female gender norms, forcefully insisting, “I’m a boy.”

“A lot of kids are defiant, and say ‘I don’t want to wear that dress’ and be difficult, but it was deeper than that. Ryland had shame,” Hillary said. "He would come home from school…and take off his girl clothes immediately. He’d go straight to Jeff’s closet and put on all of Jeff’s shirts and ties and pants.”

A family portrait, courtesy of the Whittington family

For many years, when faced with such behavior, physicians and psychologists would recommend parents “redirect” a child’s tendencies to dress or act as the gender that was not assigned to them at birth. For example, if a parent saw their son playing with Barbies, they would replace the Barbies with G.I. Joes or some other acceptable “masculine” toy.

“It’s just a phase,” was a common refrain used to quell anxious parents’ fears. For some children, that may be true, or they may express certain non-conforming traits, but not others. But for some, their assigned gender identity simply feels totally wrong.

The farther children move from their assigned gender identity, the more their parents might try to force them to conform. “Very frequently, there is a period of crisis close to puberty, where parents start to pay more attention and try to intervene,” says Feeley.

In a new study, published earlier this year in the journal Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Washington led by Kristina Olson, psychologist and founder of the TransYouth Project, found that young people who claim a different gender than what was assigned at birth identify as consistently and innately with that gender identity as other kids their age that are not trans (i.e. cisgender).

The journey towards a still limited, albeit growing, public acceptance has been a long one. When transgender identity first penetrated Western mass media, news outlets sensationalized the concept with shock value headlines like “Woman Trapped in a Man’s Body!” Those who were brave enough to discuss their gender identity and transition in public were often subject to insensitive, probing questions. For instance, when talk show host Piers Morgan interviewed Janet Mock, a well-known transgender activist, he focused primarily on Mock’s current relationship and the moment of “having to reveal that she was formerly a man” rather than Mock’s work as an advocate and her book, Redefining Realness.

In Raising Ryland, Feeley and the Whittingtons avoid the sensationalist route, instead choosing to depict how an average American family comes to terms with a child’s non-cisgender identity.

“So much of what they’re dealing with is actually universal parental issues. The Whittingtons are engaged in a type of quiet activism. There are families out there that have legal fights with their school district or the Boy Scouts, people fighting for legislative change,” Feeley said. “The Whittingtons aren’t in that kind of legal fight, I’m more interested in the internal dynamics of the family.”

In the film, told partially through the Whittingtons’ home movies, Hillary and Jeff first work through Ryland’s deaf diagnosis at 12 months, his surgery to receive cochlear implants, and “mainstreaming” Ryland by enrolling him in kindergarten at the local elementary school rather than a deaf-specialized school. Since Ryland could not speak until he was two years old, they dressed him in traditional feminine clothes (pink dresses and bows primarily).

Once Hillary and Jeff accepted Ryland’s identifying as a male they grew more and more supportive, writing a letter to their friends and family explaining Ryland’s transition and creating a YouTube video for the teachers at Ryland’s new elementary school to educate them on transgender identity. The video went viral, accumulating almost 7.5 million hits.

A contributing factor to this disturbing statistic is a lack of family support; a 2011 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 40 percent of respondents reported that their parents or other family members “chose not to speak or spend time” with them due to their gender identity/expression. The suicide of Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen, on December 28, 2014, made international news when a suicide note was posted to her Tumblr hours after her death. In the letter, she talked about her experiences growing up in a strict Christian household and how her parents tried to get her to attend conversion therapy. She wrote, “My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that's fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”

“This film and this experience is like [a] flame… I don’t want these kids’ flames to blow out… I want the light of Ryland and his family to shine in the world,” Feeley said. “And maybe it will open some people’s minds in the process.”

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Wed, 18 Mar 2015 04:10:00 +0000http://magazine.good.is/posts/raising-ryland-raises-awareness
http://magazine.good.is/posts/raising-ryland-raises-awarenessDana Driskill
Washington D.C. is standing up for its homeless trans youth. With new HUD regulations that ban single-gender shelters from turning people away because of their sexual orientation or gender and the impending opening of the city’s first ever transgender youth focused homeless shelter, there’s a lot to celebrate in the capital. But progress like this is crucial and past due nationwide.

Image via Casa Ruby Facebook

According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, more than one in ten transgender people have been evicted from their homes because of their gender identity. As a result, one in five trans people have experienced homelessness. Many of these people are young adults.

Anyone else would simply turn to a homeless shelter, but for transgender people these havens are anything but safe. Fifty-five percent of trans youth who have spent time in a shelter reported sexual harassment, 22 percent reported sexual assault, and 25 percent said that they were victims of physical assault.

Shelter patrons aren’t the only problem—management is prone to discriminate as well. Twenty-nine percent of surveyed homeless trans people reported that they had been denied entrance into a shelter because of their identity.

With the safety nets for trans youth in America as unsafe as they are, it’s crucial for cities across the country to follow Washington D.C.’s lead and support their trans children.

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Washington D.C. is standing up for its homeless trans youth. With new HUD regulations that ban single-gender shelters from turning people away because of their sexual orientation or gender and the impending opening of the city’s first ever transgender youth focused homeless shelter, there’s a lot to celebrate in the capital. But progress like this is crucial and past due nationwide.

Image via Casa Ruby Facebook

According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, more than one in ten transgender people have been evicted from their homes because of their gender identity. As a result, one in five trans people have experienced homelessness. Many of these people are young adults.

Anyone else would simply turn to a homeless shelter, but for transgender people these havens are anything but safe. Fifty-five percent of trans youth who have spent time in a shelter reported sexual harassment, 22 percent reported sexual assault, and 25 percent said that they were victims of physical assault.

Shelter patrons aren’t the only problem—management is prone to discriminate as well. Twenty-nine percent of surveyed homeless trans people reported that they had been denied entrance into a shelter because of their identity.

With the safety nets for trans youth in America as unsafe as they are, it’s crucial for cities across the country to follow Washington D.C.’s lead and support their trans children.

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Wed, 18 Mar 2015 00:55:00 +0000http://magazine.good.is/posts/washington-dc-transgender-shelter
http://magazine.good.is/posts/washington-dc-transgender-shelterIsis Madrid
It’s easy to write off Planet Fitness. The purple decor, the “lunk alarm”—it can all seem a little silly. But last week the famously “judgment-free zone” stepped up to the plate and booted a Michigan patron for repeatedly demanding that gym management ban a transgender woman from the women’s locker room.

Image by Mike Mozart via Creative Commons

"I was blocked, because a man was standing there," Cormier told MLive of her experience in the Planet Fitness locker room. "It freaked me out because, why is a man in here?"

Not only was Ms. Cormier consciously misgendering the women, which is an act of violence, she wouldn’t let it go when the front desk manager explained to her that the patron identifies as a woman and the gym would therefore respect her identity and saw no problem with her using the women’s locker room.

Ms. Cormier then went on to refute the claim with corporate, who sided with the front desk manager’s original call. When that wasn’t enough, she went back to the gym the following week and complained about the trans woman and Planet Fitness management to everyone within earshot. The company caught wind of her hate speech, and laid down the law.

A statement from the gym read:

Planet Fitness is committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members. Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity. The manner in which this member expressed her concerns about the policy exhibited behavior that management at the Midland club deemed inappropriate and disruptive to other members, which is a violation of the membership agreement and as a result her membership was canceled.

Bravo, P-Fit. I’ll never judge your lunk alarm again.

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It’s easy to write off Planet Fitness. The purple decor, the “lunk alarm”—it can all seem a little silly. But last week the famously “judgment-free zone” stepped up to the plate and booted a Michigan patron for repeatedly demanding that gym management ban a transgender woman from the women’s locker room.

Image by Mike Mozart via Creative Commons

"I was blocked, because a man was standing there," Cormier told MLive of her experience in the Planet Fitness locker room. "It freaked me out because, why is a man in here?"

Not only was Ms. Cormier consciously misgendering the women, which is an act of violence, she wouldn’t let it go when the front desk manager explained to her that the patron identifies as a woman and the gym would therefore respect her identity and saw no problem with her using the women’s locker room.

Ms. Cormier then went on to refute the claim with corporate, who sided with the front desk manager’s original call. When that wasn’t enough, she went back to the gym the following week and complained about the trans woman and Planet Fitness management to everyone within earshot. The company caught wind of her hate speech, and laid down the law.

A statement from the gym read:

Planet Fitness is committed to creating a non-intimidating, welcoming environment for our members. Our gender identity non-discrimination policy states that members and guests may use all gym facilities based on their sincere self-reported gender identity. The manner in which this member expressed her concerns about the policy exhibited behavior that management at the Midland club deemed inappropriate and disruptive to other members, which is a violation of the membership agreement and as a result her membership was canceled.

As reported by The New York Times, the famously progressive “Groovy UV” has made history with its recent agreement to officially recognize a third gender — neutral — as well as the legitimacy of gender neutral pronouns. From now on when enrolling, students will provide the university with their preferred name, regardless of its legal status, their gender identification and preferred pronouns. The school will then disperse this information to professors so they can address students properly in class.

The move is unprecedented and bold, but it wasn’t an easy battle to get here. It took ten years of lobbying for UVM to make history. A task force made up of students, faculty and administrators was created and a pricey software patch was required to make things official.

It all may seem over the top to those stuck in a he-or-she world, but the changes could legitimately save lives.

“Some people try to reduce this whole topic to kids trying to be cool or they’re just acting out or whatever, just trying to be different or new,” Robyn Ochs, an LGBTQ activist, told the Times. “But there have always been people who have felt profoundly uncomfortable in their assigned gender roles,” she said. “Anything we can do to make them safer, or make them feel recognized, heard, seen, understood, we should do. To validate their identity and experience could, in fact, save their life.”

Hopefully other universities, and society at large, follow UVM’s lead.

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Wish schools would ditch the tired gender binary already? Fret not, trans and genderqueer rights crusaders. The University of Vermont is leading the way.

Image via Creative Commons

As reported by The New York Times, the famously progressive “Groovy UV” has made history with its recent agreement to officially recognize a third gender — neutral — as well as the legitimacy of gender neutral pronouns. From now on when enrolling, students will provide the university with their preferred name, regardless of its legal status, their gender identification and preferred pronouns. The school will then disperse this information to professors so they can address students properly in class.

The move is unprecedented and bold, but it wasn’t an easy battle to get here. It took ten years of lobbying for UVM to make history. A task force made up of students, faculty and administrators was created and a pricey software patch was required to make things official.

It all may seem over the top to those stuck in a he-or-she world, but the changes could legitimately save lives.

“Some people try to reduce this whole topic to kids trying to be cool or they’re just acting out or whatever, just trying to be different or new,” Robyn Ochs, an LGBTQ activist, told the Times. “But there have always been people who have felt profoundly uncomfortable in their assigned gender roles,” she said. “Anything we can do to make them safer, or make them feel recognized, heard, seen, understood, we should do. To validate their identity and experience could, in fact, save their life.”

Hopefully other universities, and society at large, follow UVM’s lead.

Gender identity is a confusing topic for most people, and the lines get even blurrier when young kids enter the arena. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s child, Shiloh, made news when it was revealed that Shiloh identified as a boy and wanted to be called John. Pitt and Jolie have reportedly been very supportive of John, but many were skeptical that a child so young could properly gender identify. However, a new study shows that transgender children identify just as strongly as cisgender kids.

Researchers at the University of Washington, led by psychologist and founder of the TransYouth Project Kristina Olson, found that young people who claim a different gender than what was assigned at birth identify as consistently and innately with that gender identity as other kids their age that are not trans. Their study was published in the journal Psychological Science.

Olson conducted an in-depth study of 32 transgender children who were all living full-time as the gender they identified with and living in supportive home environments. None of them had reached puberty yet, according to ThinkProgress.

The study used an Implicit Association Test to measure the speed in which participants associated aspects of gender with their own identity, often automatically and subconciously. An analysis of the results found no significant difference among any of the kids; transgender and cisgender children identified with their gender identity at exactly the same rates. Transgender girls and cisgender girls identified with being a girl at the same rates; transgender boys and cisgender boys identified as being a boy at the same rates.

In an interview with KUOW in Seattle, Olson clarified that this study was about kids who assert their gender at quite an early age. “Sometimes we hear from parents that the parent says, ‘Well, you could just be a boy who likes to wear dresses,’ and the kid says, ‘No, it’s not the dress. I am a girl,'” she said. “That seems to be the crucial difference between a boy who likes a girly things and a boy who is saying, ‘I am a girl.'” In other words, not every child who explores or experiments with gender is necessarily transgender. However, when children do assert a gender identity, it’s an experience as authentic as those of cisgender kids.

Olson stressed the importance of parents supporting their children’s gender identity and highlighted how many of the parents in the study initially had negative reactions when their kids asserted that they were a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth. Lack of acceptance from parents and others can lead to serious mental health consequences, including being withdrawn, self-harm, and even suicide. Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen, took her life on December 28, 2014 and her death made international news when a suicide note was posted to her Tumblr hours after her death. In the letter, she talked about her experiences growing up in a strict Christian household and how her parents tried to get her to attend conversion therapy. She heartbreakingly wrote, “my death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that's fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”

According to a 2007 study in the American Association of Suicidology, nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and roughly 25 percent report having made a suicide attempt. The parents in Olson’s study told Olson that they had other medical professionals tell them, “You’re either going to have a child who’s living and not the gender you thought they were, or you’re not going to have a living child.”

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Gender identity is a confusing topic for most people, and the lines get even blurrier when young kids enter the arena. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s child, Shiloh, made news when it was revealed that Shiloh identified as a boy and wanted to be called John. Pitt and Jolie have reportedly been very supportive of John, but many were skeptical that a child so young could properly gender identify. However, a new study shows that transgender children identify just as strongly as cisgender kids.

Researchers at the University of Washington, led by psychologist and founder of the TransYouth Project Kristina Olson, found that young people who claim a different gender than what was assigned at birth identify as consistently and innately with that gender identity as other kids their age that are not trans. Their study was published in the journal Psychological Science.

Olson conducted an in-depth study of 32 transgender children who were all living full-time as the gender they identified with and living in supportive home environments. None of them had reached puberty yet, according to ThinkProgress.

The study used an Implicit Association Test to measure the speed in which participants associated aspects of gender with their own identity, often automatically and subconciously. An analysis of the results found no significant difference among any of the kids; transgender and cisgender children identified with their gender identity at exactly the same rates. Transgender girls and cisgender girls identified with being a girl at the same rates; transgender boys and cisgender boys identified as being a boy at the same rates.

In an interview with KUOW in Seattle, Olson clarified that this study was about kids who assert their gender at quite an early age. “Sometimes we hear from parents that the parent says, ‘Well, you could just be a boy who likes to wear dresses,’ and the kid says, ‘No, it’s not the dress. I am a girl,'” she said. “That seems to be the crucial difference between a boy who likes a girly things and a boy who is saying, ‘I am a girl.'” In other words, not every child who explores or experiments with gender is necessarily transgender. However, when children do assert a gender identity, it’s an experience as authentic as those of cisgender kids.

Olson stressed the importance of parents supporting their children’s gender identity and highlighted how many of the parents in the study initially had negative reactions when their kids asserted that they were a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth. Lack of acceptance from parents and others can lead to serious mental health consequences, including being withdrawn, self-harm, and even suicide. Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen, took her life on December 28, 2014 and her death made international news when a suicide note was posted to her Tumblr hours after her death. In the letter, she talked about her experiences growing up in a strict Christian household and how her parents tried to get her to attend conversion therapy. She heartbreakingly wrote, “my death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that's fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”

According to a 2007 study in the American Association of Suicidology, nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and roughly 25 percent report having made a suicide attempt. The parents in Olson’s study told Olson that they had other medical professionals tell them, “You’re either going to have a child who’s living and not the gender you thought they were, or you’re not going to have a living child.”

In late December, Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager from Ohio, ended her life. Before doing so, she scheduled a heartbreaking letter to be published online later that day. In her suicide note, Alcorn—whose conservative Christian parents had rejected her transgender identity—described the unbearable pain she felt, trapped between who she knew she was, and how she was treated by those around her. “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was, they're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights” wrote Leelah, who later implored: “My death has to mean something.”

Following Alcorn’s death, a global network of activists and allies, friends, and strangers alike, have committed themselves to ensuring that Leelah’s final wish is honored. For some, that’s meant advocating for the passage of what has come to be known as “Leelah’s Law”—legislation which seeks to ban the harmful “conversion therapy” to which Alcorn was subjected. For others, it’s meant supporting resources like as the transgender-focused Camp Aranu’tiq. And for a group of indie game developers, it’s meant creating and participating in an online “game jam” dubbed #JamForLeelah.

Game jams are popular ways for the game-developer community to brainstorm ideas for new projects, often focused on specific topics or themes. In the past, successful game jams have been based on locations, platforms, and concepts like evolution and the sound of a heartbeat.

As #JamForLeelah organizer Kara Jayne explains in her recorded introduction on the project’s website, Leelah was known online for having been an avid gamer, and had expressed interest in becoming a game developer in the future. In response to Leelah’s death, Jayne, along with co-organizer Matthew Boucher, created the jam as an opportunity to highlight and explore trans narratives in gaming. The jam itself consists of a month-long ideation session, ending on February 17th, in which anyone—developer, casual gaming fan, or even inspired first-timer—can submit game ideas and proposals for peer consideration. The jam also raises funds for several trans-specific charities (including the aforementioned Camp Aranu’tiq).

As project website states, game submissions must fit one or more of the following criteria:

Be primarily centered around trans issues, or other issues related to gender identity. This can be anything from having a trans protagonist to a game about growing up trans or navigating gender identity issues. Please be respectful, as anything that is purposefully disrespectful to the LGBTIQ community, or specifically the trans community, will be removed without hesitation.

Be inspired by Leelah's interests as expressed on her Tumblr e.g. sailor moon [sic], female empowerment, fashion, anime, gaming, etc whilst still attempting to raise awareness about trans youth issues and trans representation in the execution of that idea. Leelah's Tumblr can be accessed via a backup here.

The website also contains contact information for trans and GLBT-specific suicide hotlines, legal outlets, and even tools for those with minimal game design skills to get started on creating their own submission.

As such, #JamForLeelah shows itself to be something more than just a game jam, existing simply to churn out ideas for their own sake. #JamForLeelah is, instead, something more. It is a place where people from across any number of spectrums can, after a tragedy like the death of Leelah Alcorn, come together to share in something they all care about.

It is, in short, a community.

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image via (cc) flickr user jDevaun.Photography

In late December, Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager from Ohio, ended her life. Before doing so, she scheduled a heartbreaking letter to be published online later that day. In her suicide note, Alcorn—whose conservative Christian parents had rejected her transgender identity—described the unbearable pain she felt, trapped between who she knew she was, and how she was treated by those around her. “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren't treated the way I was, they're treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights” wrote Leelah, who later implored: “My death has to mean something.”

Following Alcorn’s death, a global network of activists and allies, friends, and strangers alike, have committed themselves to ensuring that Leelah’s final wish is honored. For some, that’s meant advocating for the passage of what has come to be known as “Leelah’s Law”—legislation which seeks to ban the harmful “conversion therapy” to which Alcorn was subjected. For others, it’s meant supporting resources like as the transgender-focused Camp Aranu’tiq. And for a group of indie game developers, it’s meant creating and participating in an online “game jam” dubbed #JamForLeelah.

Game jams are popular ways for the game-developer community to brainstorm ideas for new projects, often focused on specific topics or themes. In the past, successful game jams have been based on locations, platforms, and concepts like evolution and the sound of a heartbeat.

As #JamForLeelah organizer Kara Jayne explains in her recorded introduction on the project’s website, Leelah was known online for having been an avid gamer, and had expressed interest in becoming a game developer in the future. In response to Leelah’s death, Jayne, along with co-organizer Matthew Boucher, created the jam as an opportunity to highlight and explore trans narratives in gaming. The jam itself consists of a month-long ideation session, ending on February 17th, in which anyone—developer, casual gaming fan, or even inspired first-timer—can submit game ideas and proposals for peer consideration. The jam also raises funds for several trans-specific charities (including the aforementioned Camp Aranu’tiq).

As project website states, game submissions must fit one or more of the following criteria:

Be primarily centered around trans issues, or other issues related to gender identity. This can be anything from having a trans protagonist to a game about growing up trans or navigating gender identity issues. Please be respectful, as anything that is purposefully disrespectful to the LGBTIQ community, or specifically the trans community, will be removed without hesitation.

Be inspired by Leelah's interests as expressed on her Tumblr e.g. sailor moon [sic], female empowerment, fashion, anime, gaming, etc whilst still attempting to raise awareness about trans youth issues and trans representation in the execution of that idea. Leelah's Tumblr can be accessed via a backup here.

The website also contains contact information for trans and GLBT-specific suicide hotlines, legal outlets, and even tools for those with minimal game design skills to get started on creating their own submission.

As such, #JamForLeelah shows itself to be something more than just a game jam, existing simply to churn out ideas for their own sake. #JamForLeelah is, instead, something more. It is a place where people from across any number of spectrums can, after a tragedy like the death of Leelah Alcorn, come together to share in something they all care about.

In 2012, Leyth O. Jamal, a transgender woman, was fired from a Saks Fifth Avenue in Texas. She filed a discrimination lawsuit against the luxury retailer in December 2014, citing that her dismissal was due to her refusal to stop expressing her gender identity while on the job. Jamal claims that management ordered her to “separate her home life from her work life,” demanding that she adhere to more masculine standards of dress and use the men’s restrooms. When she failed to comply, and dared to speak out against the hostilities she was facing, she was terminated.

Beyond denying the allegations, Saks filed a motion on December 29, 2014, requesting that Jamal’s lawsuit be thrown out entirely, insisting that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Jamal was staking her lawsuit’s grounds on didn’t legally apply to her as “transsexuals are not a protected class under Title VII” (which bans employment discrimination rooted in race, religion, or sex). Thus, Saks believes it’s well within its rights to hire, fire, or discipline Jamal—or any other persons of “‘non-traditional gender,’” as Saks’s legal team describes Jamal—however they damn well please. And, adding insult to injury, every mention of Jamal’s gender by Saks’s legal team is accompanied by a “[sic],” indicating the attorneys and client disagree with Jamal’s chosen pronoun.

Saks’s motion was filed soon after Attorney General Eric Holder mandated that transgender people are protected under Title VII in a memo, and apparently is choosing to turn a blind eye to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ruling in 2012 that discriminating on the basis of gender identity is in line with illegal sex discrimination.

Jamal’s case has seized the attention of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT rights group in the States, who has since suspended Saks’s former highly favorable 90 percent rating on their Corporate Equality Index, a measurement of the LGBT policies (or lack thereof) of companies. Ironically, while Saks does have a nondiscrimination policy in place that accounts for gender identity protection, they argue that “policies in an employee handbook do not create a contract.” We’d then like to know why exactly these policies are written? Some light reading to peruse during a bathroom break? (Make sure you use the correct restroom, though.)

Kathleen Ruiz, Saks’s Senior Vice President, said in an email to Bloomberg that the company couldn’t comment on pending litigation, but issued a perfectly bland boilerplate statement reaffirming the company’s “long history of policies and practices that are fully supportive of the LGBT community.”

The pretrial is set to begin February 3, 2015.

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Leyth O. Jamal. Photo courtesy Leyth O. Jamal.

In 2012, Leyth O. Jamal, a transgender woman, was fired from a Saks Fifth Avenue in Texas. She filed a discrimination lawsuit against the luxury retailer in December 2014, citing that her dismissal was due to her refusal to stop expressing her gender identity while on the job. Jamal claims that management ordered her to “separate her home life from her work life,” demanding that she adhere to more masculine standards of dress and use the men’s restrooms. When she failed to comply, and dared to speak out against the hostilities she was facing, she was terminated.

Beyond denying the allegations, Saks filed a motion on December 29, 2014, requesting that Jamal’s lawsuit be thrown out entirely, insisting that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Jamal was staking her lawsuit’s grounds on didn’t legally apply to her as “transsexuals are not a protected class under Title VII” (which bans employment discrimination rooted in race, religion, or sex). Thus, Saks believes it’s well within its rights to hire, fire, or discipline Jamal—or any other persons of “‘non-traditional gender,’” as Saks’s legal team describes Jamal—however they damn well please. And, adding insult to injury, every mention of Jamal’s gender by Saks’s legal team is accompanied by a “[sic],” indicating the attorneys and client disagree with Jamal’s chosen pronoun.

Saks’s motion was filed soon after Attorney General Eric Holder mandated that transgender people are protected under Title VII in a memo, and apparently is choosing to turn a blind eye to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ruling in 2012 that discriminating on the basis of gender identity is in line with illegal sex discrimination.

Jamal’s case has seized the attention of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT rights group in the States, who has since suspended Saks’s former highly favorable 90 percent rating on their Corporate Equality Index, a measurement of the LGBT policies (or lack thereof) of companies. Ironically, while Saks does have a nondiscrimination policy in place that accounts for gender identity protection, they argue that “policies in an employee handbook do not create a contract.” We’d then like to know why exactly these policies are written? Some light reading to peruse during a bathroom break? (Make sure you use the correct restroom, though.)

Kathleen Ruiz, Saks’s Senior Vice President, said in an email to Bloomberg that the company couldn’t comment on pending litigation, but issued a perfectly bland boilerplate statement reaffirming the company’s “long history of policies and practices that are fully supportive of the LGBT community.”

This past Sunday, 35-year-old Madhu Bai Kinnar emerged victorious in her bid for mayor in the city of Raigarh in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The triumph was momentous, not only in that she won by a sizable 4,500 plus vote margin, but also because Kinnar has become the country’s very first transgender mayor.

Kinnar’s appointment follows last April’s landmark ruling by the highest court in India that transgender people can be legally recognized as a third gender, or “gender neutral.” Estimations put India’s transgender population at approximately two million. Hijras, as they’re commonly known, are often ostracized by society and struggle to find work, often forced to resort to begging, prostitution, or performing on the street. Kinnar, a member of the Dalit caste (formerly known as the untouchables), sang and danced on trains to make a living, but stopped when she was asked to run for office by her community.

“People have shown faith in me. I consider this win as love and blessings of people for me. I'll put in my best efforts to accomplish their dreams,” Kinnar was quoted as saying, as she celebrated her victory.

This past Sunday, 35-year-old Madhu Bai Kinnar emerged victorious in her bid for mayor in the city of Raigarh in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The triumph was momentous, not only in that she won by a sizable 4,500 plus vote margin, but also because Kinnar has become the country’s very first transgender mayor.

Kinnar’s appointment follows last April’s landmark ruling by the highest court in India that transgender people can be legally recognized as a third gender, or “gender neutral.” Estimations put India’s transgender population at approximately two million. Hijras, as they’re commonly known, are often ostracized by society and struggle to find work, often forced to resort to begging, prostitution, or performing on the street. Kinnar, a member of the Dalit caste (formerly known as the untouchables), sang and danced on trains to make a living, but stopped when she was asked to run for office by her community.

“People have shown faith in me. I consider this win as love and blessings of people for me. I'll put in my best efforts to accomplish their dreams,” Kinnar was quoted as saying, as she celebrated her victory.

Trans Clothes Swap is celebrating its one-year anniversary with plans of expansion. The Tumblr-based marketplace sprung up last year, serving people in the US, UK, Canada, South America, Europe and Australia.

“Finding clothes as a trans person can be really hard,” says the text on the site. “Sometimes you can’t go shopping with friends or family, sometimes you’re not out, sometimes you don’t have the money.”

Set up as a forum for transgender people to swap clothing, makeup, accessories and beauty products and receive donations, Trans Clothes Swap will soon be reconceptualized as Trans Supply. The new site will improve usability and provide pre-paid shipping labels so that trans customers that can’t afford it won’t have to pay for shipping. Additionally, the next phase of the project will bring an app.

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Image via the Trans Clothes Swap Tumblr.

Trans Clothes Swap is celebrating its one-year anniversary with plans of expansion. The Tumblr-based marketplace sprung up last year, serving people in the US, UK, Canada, South America, Europe and Australia.

“Finding clothes as a trans person can be really hard,” says the text on the site. “Sometimes you can’t go shopping with friends or family, sometimes you’re not out, sometimes you don’t have the money.”

Set up as a forum for transgender people to swap clothing, makeup, accessories and beauty products and receive donations, Trans Clothes Swap will soon be reconceptualized as Trans Supply. The new site will improve usability and provide pre-paid shipping labels so that trans customers that can’t afford it won’t have to pay for shipping. Additionally, the next phase of the project will bring an app.

In the wake of 17-year-old Ohio transgender girl Leelah Alcorn’s suicide, a community of friends, peers, and allies are left reeling and contemplating just how many trans youth need to suffer these heartbreaking consequences before we see some true progress and acceptance. “My death needs to mean something,” implored Alcorn in her suicide note, which she queued up on Tumblr to be published after her death.

Camp Aranu’tiq, founded in 2009 by Nick Teich, is a safe summer camp for transgender and gender-variant youth. There, kids and young adults like Alcorn can find a supportive community. Since launching, the camp has held multiple programs and retreats for kids, teens, and families in New Hampshire and California. They are currently raising funds to open a permanent 116-acre waterfront property in New Hampshire.

According to The Trevor Project, nearly half of transgender youth have thought about committing suicide, and one quarter have made an attempt. Additionally, a 2010 IMPACT study on LGBT youth found that the likelihood of self-harm increased by an average of 2.5 times every time a child experienced physical or verbal harassment or abuse.

It doesn’t seem fair that some trans youth are shunned and bullied by their own families while others are afforded all the love in the world, but hopefully safe spaces like Camp Aranu’tiq can shine a little light and support, paving the way to a future where the T in LGBT is accepted as beautiful, brave, and meaningful to all.

In the wake of 17-year-old Ohio transgender girl Leelah Alcorn’s suicide, a community of friends, peers, and allies are left reeling and contemplating just how many trans youth need to suffer these heartbreaking consequences before we see some true progress and acceptance. “My death needs to mean something,” implored Alcorn in her suicide note, which she queued up on Tumblr to be published after her death.

Camp Aranu’tiq, founded in 2009 by Nick Teich, is a safe summer camp for transgender and gender-variant youth. There, kids and young adults like Alcorn can find a supportive community. Since launching, the camp has held multiple programs and retreats for kids, teens, and families in New Hampshire and California. They are currently raising funds to open a permanent 116-acre waterfront property in New Hampshire.

According to The Trevor Project, nearly half of transgender youth have thought about committing suicide, and one quarter have made an attempt. Additionally, a 2010 IMPACT study on LGBT youth found that the likelihood of self-harm increased by an average of 2.5 times every time a child experienced physical or verbal harassment or abuse.

It doesn’t seem fair that some trans youth are shunned and bullied by their own families while others are afforded all the love in the world, but hopefully safe spaces like Camp Aranu’tiq can shine a little light and support, paving the way to a future where the T in LGBT is accepted as beautiful, brave, and meaningful to all.

Dropping a “she,” “he,” “her” or “him” doesn’t typically get a second thought in everyday conversation, but it’s time to reconsider the pronoun. As awareness of non-binary gender identities and transgender people becomes more prevalent in mainstream culture, so too must the regard for the preferred gender pronouns (PGPs) of the people who identify as such.

A California artist is trying to bring awareness to this issue with an array of “Hello Pronoun” stickers and buttons. With six different pronoun varieties to choose from - “Thy/Them/Theirs, He/Him/His, She/Her/Hers, Ze/Hir/Hirs, Xe/Xem/Xyrs, and fill-in-the-blank, wearers can tell the world how they identify. Gone are the days of assuming someone else’s gender identity upon meeting them, it’s time to welcome a new era of mindfulness.

“Whether being used when meeting new people or as a gentle reminder to old friends, this sticker uses a familiar format to communicate the information quickly and easily,” explains the Non-Newtonian Gender Fluid website.

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Dropping a “she,” “he,” “her” or “him” doesn’t typically get a second thought in everyday conversation, but it’s time to reconsider the pronoun. As awareness of non-binary gender identities and transgender people becomes more prevalent in mainstream culture, so too must the regard for the preferred gender pronouns (PGPs) of the people who identify as such.

A California artist is trying to bring awareness to this issue with an array of “Hello Pronoun” stickers and buttons. With six different pronoun varieties to choose from - “Thy/Them/Theirs, He/Him/His, She/Her/Hers, Ze/Hir/Hirs, Xe/Xem/Xyrs, and fill-in-the-blank, wearers can tell the world how they identify. Gone are the days of assuming someone else’s gender identity upon meeting them, it’s time to welcome a new era of mindfulness.

“Whether being used when meeting new people or as a gentle reminder to old friends, this sticker uses a familiar format to communicate the information quickly and easily,” explains the Non-Newtonian Gender Fluid website.

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Fri, 26 Dec 2014 21:45:00 +0000http://magazine.good.is/posts/gender-pronoun-stickers
http://magazine.good.is/posts/gender-pronoun-stickersIsis Madrid
Why are the most accessible names of black victims in this country those of black men? Well, misogyny, transmisogyny, and homophobia—that’s why. In a society steeped in injustice, it should be intolerable to champion one marginalized population while ignoring another. Many activists agree with this sentiment; just take a look at the #BlackTransLivesMatter and #BlackWomensLivesMatter threads on social media. The stories of Tanisha Anderson, Islan Nettles and Aiyana Jones need to be at the forefront of America’s conversation just as much as those of Mike, Eric and Tamir. To ignore them is a disservice to the movement.
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Why are the most accessible names of black victims in this country those of black men? Well, misogyny, transmisogyny, and homophobia—that’s why. In a society steeped in injustice, it should be intolerable to champion one marginalized population while ignoring another. Many activists agree with this sentiment; just take a look at the #BlackTransLivesMatter and #BlackWomensLivesMatter threads on social media. The stories of Tanisha Anderson, Islan Nettles and Aiyana Jones need to be at the forefront of America’s conversation just as much as those of Mike, Eric and Tamir. To ignore them is a disservice to the movement.
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Wed, 24 Dec 2014 09:30:00 +0000http://magazine.good.is/posts/black-women-trans-lives-matter
http://magazine.good.is/posts/black-women-trans-lives-matterIsis Madridspoke out in support of Montoya, reversed the local chapter's decision, and released the following statement:

Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members...If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.

But the happy ending didn't stick. The story has resurfaced because of a seriously creepy YouTube speech in which 14-year-old "Taylor" speaks out against Girl Scouts' acceptance of trans people. In the video above, she calls for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies, citing the benefits of single-sex activities, reminding the viewer of her right to an "all-girls experience," and wondering where trans Girl Scouts would go to the bathroom. Taylor delivers her speech under reductive captions like "Is it safe to hide boys in Girl Scouts?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" frameborder="0">

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spoke out in support of Montoya, reversed the local chapter's decision, and released the following statement:

Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members...If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.

But the happy ending didn't stick. The story has resurfaced because of a seriously creepy YouTube speech in which 14-year-old "Taylor" speaks out against Girl Scouts' acceptance of trans people. In the video above, she calls for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies, citing the benefits of single-sex activities, reminding the viewer of her right to an "all-girls experience," and wondering where trans Girl Scouts would go to the bathroom. Taylor delivers her speech under reductive captions like "Is it safe to hide boys in Girl Scouts?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" frameborder="0">

The first time I openly laughed at a transgender person I was 12 years old. It was February, but I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, so the movie theater in which I was seeing Ace Ventura: Pet Detective had the AC on. The laughter helped me shake off the chill.

We, the audience, had just learned that Sean Young's character, Lt. Lois Einhorn, was transgender. Prior to identifying herself as Lois Einhorn, she'd been the pro football player Ray Finkle, who everyone thought was an at-large criminal. "Einhorn is Finkle!" screamed Jim Carrey, cracking the case before our very eyes. "Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is a man!" Then, more to himself: "Einhorn is a man?" Then he went to vomit.

The joke, if you can call it that, rested upon an earlier scene in which Carrey kissed Lt. Einhorn. "Your gun is digging into my hip," he'd told her as they made out. Now the memory of kissing a transgender woman was forcing Carrey to puke profusely, burn his clothes, and weep. In the background played Boy George's "The Crying Game," the hit song from two years earlier that had soundtracked a dramatic film with a prominent transgender character.

Looking back, I'm ashamed at how much I guffawed at Carrey's revulsion. We all know what the real joke was—it was disgusting to kiss Einhorn because there's something weird and gross about transgender people. The mockery gets especially debased when Carrey forcefully strips Einhorn down in front of an army of police officers in order to expose her tucked-away penis. Everyone dry heaves when they see the bulge. Carrey eventually tells someone to "read it its rights."

The laughter at transgender people's expense didn't end there, either. One month after Ace Ventura premiered I saw Naked Gun 33 1/3, the hit comedy in which Anna Nicole Smith's character does a sexy silhouette striptease that ends up revealing a penis. Once again, her former suitors are appalled. Then there's the famous Tone Loc frat anthem "Funky Cold Medina," the second verse of which finds Loc talking about a girl he meets named Sheena. After the two flirt, Loc takes Sheena home, where it's revealed that she's transgender. The rapper, who you might remember also co-starred in Ace Ventura, throws Sheena out of his house, saying, "I don't fool around with no Oscar Mayer wiener." Even in supposedly queer-friendly movies like 1991's Soapdish you'll find characters disgusted by transgender people, like when Robert Downey Jr. gags after having a romantic interlude with a trans woman.

Repugnance is a common theme in the trans-people-as-jokes canon. But more prevalent is the element of deceit. Time and again in both comedic and dramatic films, transgender people are cast as deviant tricksters out to fool innocent victims into sleeping with them. This narrative plays upon two of America's deepest fears: sexual vulnerability and humiliation. Not only is your sex partner "lying" about their gender, victims who "fall for it" are then forced to grapple with the embarrassment of being had, of being seen as gay. Men "tricked" into sleeping with another man are embarrassed by the threat to their masculinity. So much culture has taught us that transgender people aren't just sexual aliens, they're also predatory liars.

In reality, we know the real predators are straight people afraid of transgender interlopers. Transgender men and women have been raped, beaten, and killed, often with impunity, throughout history, but only recently have we been keeping count. In 1993 Brandon Teena was raped by two former friends after they discovered he was born a woman. Teena reported the rape, but his local sheriff, who called Teena "it," refused to arrest the attackers. Five days after assaulting him, they returned and murdered him. Similarly, in 2002, four acquaintances of Gwen Araujo, a 17-year-old girl in California, beat and strangled her to death after discovering she was transgender. In all, the Human Rights Campaign estimates one out of every 1,000 murders a year are transgender hate crimes.

More recent cultural depictions of transgender characters are less reactionary, but they're still not very humanizing. A character on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia did date a transgender woman, but they concentrated most of the jokes around his girlfriend's big penis. And in the recent hit sequel The Hangover 2, Ed Helms has sex with a transgender prostitute who may or may not have taken advantage of him when he was too drunk to function (once again, trans folks are portrayed as predatory). We have made some progress, sure, but tell that to the transgender woman who was beaten into a seizure in Baltimore in April. We've still got a long way to go.

In the years since I laughed along with Ace Ventura, I've grown up and stopped getting a kick out of LGBT people—you could say I've gotten better. I've also started to consider what I was laughing at in the first place. I'm willing to agree that society is improved if we grant some leeway to comedians and artists to push the limits. But when pushing the limits becomes debasing an entire group of people as twisted quasi-rapists, we cross the line from comedy to bigotry. When I was laughing at Ace Ventura I was laughing because I was uncomfortable with a biological man living as a woman. I have to wonder if Brandon Teena's killers laughed, too.

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The first time I openly laughed at a transgender person I was 12 years old. It was February, but I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, so the movie theater in which I was seeing Ace Ventura: Pet Detective had the AC on. The laughter helped me shake off the chill.

We, the audience, had just learned that Sean Young's character, Lt. Lois Einhorn, was transgender. Prior to identifying herself as Lois Einhorn, she'd been the pro football player Ray Finkle, who everyone thought was an at-large criminal. "Einhorn is Finkle!" screamed Jim Carrey, cracking the case before our very eyes. "Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is a man!" Then, more to himself: "Einhorn is a man?" Then he went to vomit.

The joke, if you can call it that, rested upon an earlier scene in which Carrey kissed Lt. Einhorn. "Your gun is digging into my hip," he'd told her as they made out. Now the memory of kissing a transgender woman was forcing Carrey to puke profusely, burn his clothes, and weep. In the background played Boy George's "The Crying Game," the hit song from two years earlier that had soundtracked a dramatic film with a prominent transgender character.

Looking back, I'm ashamed at how much I guffawed at Carrey's revulsion. We all know what the real joke was—it was disgusting to kiss Einhorn because there's something weird and gross about transgender people. The mockery gets especially debased when Carrey forcefully strips Einhorn down in front of an army of police officers in order to expose her tucked-away penis. Everyone dry heaves when they see the bulge. Carrey eventually tells someone to "read it its rights."

The laughter at transgender people's expense didn't end there, either. One month after Ace Ventura premiered I saw Naked Gun 33 1/3, the hit comedy in which Anna Nicole Smith's character does a sexy silhouette striptease that ends up revealing a penis. Once again, her former suitors are appalled. Then there's the famous Tone Loc frat anthem "Funky Cold Medina," the second verse of which finds Loc talking about a girl he meets named Sheena. After the two flirt, Loc takes Sheena home, where it's revealed that she's transgender. The rapper, who you might remember also co-starred in Ace Ventura, throws Sheena out of his house, saying, "I don't fool around with no Oscar Mayer wiener." Even in supposedly queer-friendly movies like 1991's Soapdish you'll find characters disgusted by transgender people, like when Robert Downey Jr. gags after having a romantic interlude with a trans woman.

Repugnance is a common theme in the trans-people-as-jokes canon. But more prevalent is the element of deceit. Time and again in both comedic and dramatic films, transgender people are cast as deviant tricksters out to fool innocent victims into sleeping with them. This narrative plays upon two of America's deepest fears: sexual vulnerability and humiliation. Not only is your sex partner "lying" about their gender, victims who "fall for it" are then forced to grapple with the embarrassment of being had, of being seen as gay. Men "tricked" into sleeping with another man are embarrassed by the threat to their masculinity. So much culture has taught us that transgender people aren't just sexual aliens, they're also predatory liars.

In reality, we know the real predators are straight people afraid of transgender interlopers. Transgender men and women have been raped, beaten, and killed, often with impunity, throughout history, but only recently have we been keeping count. In 1993 Brandon Teena was raped by two former friends after they discovered he was born a woman. Teena reported the rape, but his local sheriff, who called Teena "it," refused to arrest the attackers. Five days after assaulting him, they returned and murdered him. Similarly, in 2002, four acquaintances of Gwen Araujo, a 17-year-old girl in California, beat and strangled her to death after discovering she was transgender. In all, the Human Rights Campaign estimates one out of every 1,000 murders a year are transgender hate crimes.

More recent cultural depictions of transgender characters are less reactionary, but they're still not very humanizing. A character on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia did date a transgender woman, but they concentrated most of the jokes around his girlfriend's big penis. And in the recent hit sequel The Hangover 2, Ed Helms has sex with a transgender prostitute who may or may not have taken advantage of him when he was too drunk to function (once again, trans folks are portrayed as predatory). We have made some progress, sure, but tell that to the transgender woman who was beaten into a seizure in Baltimore in April. We've still got a long way to go.

In the years since I laughed along with Ace Ventura, I've grown up and stopped getting a kick out of LGBT people—you could say I've gotten better. I've also started to consider what I was laughing at in the first place. I'm willing to agree that society is improved if we grant some leeway to comedians and artists to push the limits. But when pushing the limits becomes debasing an entire group of people as twisted quasi-rapists, we cross the line from comedy to bigotry. When I was laughing at Ace Ventura I was laughing because I was uncomfortable with a biological man living as a woman. I have to wonder if Brandon Teena's killers laughed, too.

In keeping with Sweden's rep as the most evolved country ever, a preschool there is attempting to eliminate gender bias in the classroom by not using the words "him" or "her." At the taxpayer-funded Egalia preschool, teachers use the word "friend" and the recently invented Swedish gender-neutral pronoun "hen" instead. Lego bricks and building blocks are placed next to the toy kitchen, where all the kids play in harmony.

"Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing," the teacher told the AP. "Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."

This news comes after the international freak-out over one Toronto couple who are raising their baby, Storm, without telling anyone the sex (naturally, the Swedes tried that first), not to mention the ludicrous hub-bub over Brad and Angie's genderbending daughter, Shiloh. So far, the world has not taken kindly to attempts to raise kids in a world free of gender expectations.

When I heard about the Toronto couple's gender-free child, I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the parents will theoretically give their baby a chance to choose its own gender based on how it feels, not on what's between its legs. On the other hand, raising a single genderless child amid a sea of pink and blue seems like a short-sighted way to fight gender bias. I could easily see the freedom to discover one's own gender identity being overshadowed by the kid being socially isolated or relentlessly teased. Also, the effort that goes into concealing a kid's gender from the rest of the world might, ironically, lead to an obsessive focus on gender in the kid's life.

This preschool, on the other hand, is making moves toward dissolving mandated gender roles in a community-based way, where the gender pressure is off en masse. It would make a child's process of gender identification seem normal and just another part of growing up. Given the hell that trans kids go through, that would be a huge improvement over our boys-against-girls mentality.

Still, I feel really torn about banning books like Cinderella and Snow White simply because they have deep gender stereotypes. My first impulse would be to read them alongside books with more progressive storylines, and then explain how the gender dynamics in Disney tales are fucked up. That way, the kids would be prepared to fight gender bias in the wider world after they leave the 33-kid utopia of Egalia preschool. Just like disingenuous "post-racial" rhetoric and wishful-thinking girl power, it's tough to fight against inequality when you pretend it doesn't exist.

Given the insane transphobia and enduring faith in gender roles in this country, it's doubtful that this experiment is coming our way any time soon. But if it's successful, maybe it'll turn the tide toward a less restrictive society, where we accept a spectrum of gender identities and the "battle of the sexes" isn't quite so ingrained in our daily lives.

In keeping with Sweden's rep as the most evolved country ever, a preschool there is attempting to eliminate gender bias in the classroom by not using the words "him" or "her." At the taxpayer-funded Egalia preschool, teachers use the word "friend" and the recently invented Swedish gender-neutral pronoun "hen" instead. Lego bricks and building blocks are placed next to the toy kitchen, where all the kids play in harmony.

"Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing," the teacher told the AP. "Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."

This news comes after the international freak-out over one Toronto couple who are raising their baby, Storm, without telling anyone the sex (naturally, the Swedes tried that first), not to mention the ludicrous hub-bub over Brad and Angie's genderbending daughter, Shiloh. So far, the world has not taken kindly to attempts to raise kids in a world free of gender expectations.

When I heard about the Toronto couple's gender-free child, I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the parents will theoretically give their baby a chance to choose its own gender based on how it feels, not on what's between its legs. On the other hand, raising a single genderless child amid a sea of pink and blue seems like a short-sighted way to fight gender bias. I could easily see the freedom to discover one's own gender identity being overshadowed by the kid being socially isolated or relentlessly teased. Also, the effort that goes into concealing a kid's gender from the rest of the world might, ironically, lead to an obsessive focus on gender in the kid's life.

This preschool, on the other hand, is making moves toward dissolving mandated gender roles in a community-based way, where the gender pressure is off en masse. It would make a child's process of gender identification seem normal and just another part of growing up. Given the hell that trans kids go through, that would be a huge improvement over our boys-against-girls mentality.

Still, I feel really torn about banning books like Cinderella and Snow White simply because they have deep gender stereotypes. My first impulse would be to read them alongside books with more progressive storylines, and then explain how the gender dynamics in Disney tales are fucked up. That way, the kids would be prepared to fight gender bias in the wider world after they leave the 33-kid utopia of Egalia preschool. Just like disingenuous "post-racial" rhetoric and wishful-thinking girl power, it's tough to fight against inequality when you pretend it doesn't exist.

Given the insane transphobia and enduring faith in gender roles in this country, it's doubtful that this experiment is coming our way any time soon. But if it's successful, maybe it'll turn the tide toward a less restrictive society, where we accept a spectrum of gender identities and the "battle of the sexes" isn't quite so ingrained in our daily lives.